University of Dodoma and Makerere to Offer Joint Masters Degree in Oil and Gas

Initiated by the Makerere University in Uganda and the University of Dodoma (UDOM) in Tanzania, is set to commence in next academic year at UDOM.

According to the Dean of Biological Sciences at UDOM, Professor Julius Nyahongo, the 18-month programme that is scheduled to start in the next academic year, envisages empowering students in sustainable management of resources and livelihood enhancement in the gas and oil reserves endowed region.

New gas and oil discoveries in the East Africa region have unfolded a limited capacity in the sector researches, prompting the two public universities to develop a curriculum that will address the social, cultural, economic and environmental issues associated with the natural resources in the region.

Norway, which is supporting exploitation of oil in Uganda and gas industry in Tanzania has provided funds for training two lecturers at PHD level and four other lecturers at Master’s degree level in petroleum and gas governance, Professor Nyahongo said.

The Master’s degree programme, the first in the region, is slated to start in 2017/18 academic year, with an initial enrolment of 40 students from east Africa and other countries in the continent. Two weeks ago, lecturers from Makerere University and UDOM met in Dodoma over the curriculum for the newly introduced degree programme.

Professor Nyahongo said that despite oil and gas discoveries promising economic development and revenues to respective governments, the sector is under close watch by human rights activists lest the discovery slide into a resourcecurse.

Norway has been supporting gas industry in Tanzania since 2009 and the Nordic country is behind the biggest discoveries in the country, which is among major natural gas producers in Africa South of Sahara.

In its report, titled, “Beating the Resource Curse,” the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), says in Africa, the top eight oil producers in 2011 were Nigeria, Algeria, Angola, Egypt, Libya, Sudan, the Republic of Congo and Equatorial Guinea.

In the last decade, violent conflict or repressive regimes have plagued these countries. Every one for which a ranking is available has a negative score on the World Bank’s control of corruption index. Polity, a United States-based project which measures the authority characteristics of states, scores these countries from mediocre to awful.

Often countries with weak governance and abundant natural resources are prone to armed violence, with Sudan, where oil rents are equal to over 18 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) and Nigeria whose oil rents amounting to almost 30 percent of GDP, as example.